The FX biker drama “Sons of Anarchy” returns for a new season at 9 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 11) and much has changed. The central character Clay is broken, Gemma’s a free agent, and new characters roar onto the screen. One is Harold Perrineau (“Lost”), playing a legitimate businessman with an illegitimate past. The other is Jimmy Smits (“NYPD Blue”), playing a love broker and looking more comfortable on screen than he has in forever.

“I’m just happy I don’t have to wear a suit,” Smits said during the “Sons” panel interview session at the Summer TV Tour. “One of the things that struck me is that the show is so cinematic on so many different levels, so I had been a huge, huge fan, and it’s not the first time that I’m jumping on board a moving train. The ensemble, it’s been really incredible over the past couple of seasons to watch them get tighter and tighter and really gel.

“I’m happy to be here and mix it up and do something a little bit different.”

Kurt Sutter, the show’s creator, said he’d been thinking about incorporating a character like Smits’ Nero Padilla for a couple of seasons.

He “had taken a couple different shapes and forms in the process,” Sutter said. “And we landed on the idea of Nero being a guy who was an outlaw but from a different environment, and a guy that was a little bit more of an older brother or potentially a mentor figure.”

In casting, “We aim high,” Sutter said. “And sometimes we get that first choice and sometimes we don’t. In the case of Jimmy, we got the first choice. He was the guy we were interested in getting.

“Jimmy is an actor with an incredible pedigree and a great resume and has been on so many shows that I’ve been a fan of.”

The addition of Smitts and Perrineau is par for the course with “Sons” as every year the series is able to draw top tier talent for story arches such as Adam Arkin, Henry Rollins, Danny Trejo and Hal Holbrook. Then again it’s no surprise the series has had such an easy time finding guest stars as every week, “Sons” dolls out an incredibly well thought out dose of both action and superior storytelling that sets it apart from its competitors. The rag tag group of characters are in every sense one of TV’s most dysfunctional families, but when the chips are down they are fiercely loyal; just like the show’s fans!

"Few series have exploded onto the scene with such a rich array of potential stories and inherently interesting characters," The San Francisco Chronicle said about "Sons of Anarchy."

Although some critics do not agree with this view and argue the characters and plot have no depth and are unworthy of viewership, one could argue the "Sons’" fan following, as well as their now five-year run, speaks for itself.

It probably shouldn't bother me as much as it did, but there's a scene in tonight's 90-minute "Sons of Anarchy" (10 p.m., FX) season premiere that's so horrific, it might lead me to abandon the series.

That's not meant as a knock on the show -- and I'm not sure I'll really quit it -- but this particular piece of violence is really upsetting. Not that we haven't seen anything just as terrible in the past. But because this instance of horrific violence involves a critical loss for a series regular, it feels worse than if it had happened to a random Red Shirt character.